


Starved for Touch

by beeeinyourbonnet



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), World Is Not Enough (1999)
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:30:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeeinyourbonnet/pseuds/beeeinyourbonnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Gold family vacation is interrupted when Belle manages to meet a clone of Rumpelstiltskin in a cafe.</p>
<p>Or—Even anarchists eat macarons sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly Rumbelle, just so everyone knows, but also Renbelle, but not in a weird way. Yes. :D

**_Nice, France. Monday, March 3. 0952 hours._ **

The only noises in the café were Edith Piaf’s voice warbling over the speakers, and the sounds Belle’s croissant made as she nibbled at it between page-turning. She was the only person in the small room, having been abandoned to her book by the owner so that he could check on the kitchen. The door was propped open by a chalkboard bearing the specials, letting a balmy breeze gust through.

Rumpelstiltskin would like the café, she decided. It would be the perfect spot for a post-breakfast pick-me-up when he and Bae got back from their father-son boat ride. Maybe Emma and Henry would be done with whatever Henry had dragged his mother off to do by then, too. For now, Belle was content to be alone, since it meant that she was finally getting to do the one thing she wanted—read a book in a quaint café by the French seaside.

Her cell phone rang, interrupting Edith’s song, and she fumbled with her book for a few seconds before managing to pull the phone out of her purse. “Hello?”

“Hi, sweetheart. There’s been a small mishap, and it seems we need to return to our hotel room before we can meet you. Are you still at Café Lune?”

“Right where you left me,” she assured him. He’d been nervous about leaving her alone, and tried to insist that she at least go with Emma, but it was the only time she was getting with her book and she was loathe to lose it. “What happened?”

“Ah—Bae caught a fish.”

“That’s great!” She set her book down, settling back in the chair.

“Not with a line.”

Belle didn’t know what this meant, but she could hear Baelfire yelling in the background, so she decided not to ask. “How long do you think you’ll be?”

“Half an hour, at most. We’re back at the hotel now.”

“Great. I’ll see you soon.”

“I love you, Belle.”

Belle smiled, twisting her ring around her finger. “I love you, too, Rumple. See you in a bit.”

“See you.”

Since she had already been interrupted, she figured it was time to replenish her coffee and pastry plate, so she set her book down on the table and stood up. The owner was still in the back, but a man had come in. He stood at the counter, zipped to his chin in a navy blue windbreaker despite the mild warmth outside.

_Perhaps_ , Belle thought, _he’s sick_. Even through his jacket and bulky pants, she could see how thin he was. He was drumming his hand against his pocket like he had too much energy to be standing in line at a café. It was too much energy for being on the Riviera, no matter what he was doing. She wanted to still his hand.

She sidled up to lean an elbow on the counter, peering around him. He glanced at her, like he wasn’t sure what she was doing. She licked her lips, trying to get her French together in her mind before opening her mouth.

“Um— _est-ce que le—homme de café—_ um—” She chewed her lip, trying to think of any word that would suffice.

Then, he turned to her, and his face looked oddly familiar. “I speak English,” he said, in an accent she couldn’t place.

“Oh, thank goodness.” She smiled. “Is the man in the back still?”

“Ah.” He glanced back, and for the first time, Belle heard muffled thuds and grunts over Edith Piaf. “Yes, I think so.”

A clatter that sounded like forks hitting the ground erupted from the back, and she frowned, straining her ears. “I wonder if something’s wrong?”

He turned sharply toward her, his sunken eyes making him look even more focused on her face. At this angle, with Belle able to see fully the line of his nose and the curve of his jaw, she thought he looked a bit like Rumpelstiltskin—except that this man was bald, and wearing a windbreaker that her fiancé wouldn’t be caught dead in.

“I’m sure everything is—”

Belle cut him off with an “oh!” and the hand not holding her empty coffee cup flew to her mouth. The man’s eyes widened, and he clapped a hand on his hip.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Your head—did you know you’re bleeding?” She searched the counter for napkins and, when she found none, set her coffee down to look elsewhere.

She made it halfway across the room before he spoke again.

“It’s dry blood. A scar.”

“Oh.” She turned back to the counter to find him watching her, and the way he squinted and tilted his head just a fraction—the wonder in his face—reminded her so much of Rumpelstiltskin that she just wanted to gather him in her arms and ask him why he was wearing such a warm jacket on a warm day.

A shout broke through the moment, and Belle snapped her head toward the back room. The Rumple-clone clenched his jaw, keeping his gaze on Belle like he was waiting for her to attack.

“Something’s wrong—we should go help.” She started for the counter, then blushed when she realized she was treating him like Rumple. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. You don’t have to come back—maybe you can call the police?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.

It had never occurred to Belle that, out in the world without magic, she would encounter people similar to the villains in her own life. She attributed the reason that she didn’t notice the man’s suspicious nonchalance before to this.

Never one to back away from danger, even when she should for her own safety, she narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on back there?”

He met her stare, and she could have sworn that the corners of his mouth twitched. She folded her arms.

“You are nosy,” he said, just as a gunshot rang out from the back.

Belle flinched, the memory of her own shooting still too raw, but refused to back down. As she suspected, the man’s hand kept straying to his hip because he, too, was carrying. He pulled his gun out and leveled it at her chest.

“Are you going to shoot me?” She refused to back down. Captain Hook was a much more terrifying adversary than this man who looked like Rumpelstiltskin, and if she could stand with his gun against her skin, she could stand here.

“Only if I have to.” He jerked his head to the door. “Walk.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. The noise from the back room had quieted, leaving silence and Edith Piaf in its wake. He smacked his lips with impatience.

“Walk, girl.”

“Walk where?” she asked. He didn’t want to shoot her—he had said as much—so maybe she could stall long enough for Rumple to get there. What he couldn’t save with his cane, he could save with magic.

With no warning, the man leaned over and stuck his boot through the display case glass. Belle jumped, biting her cheek to keep from screaming. He was trying to intimidate her, and she wouldn’t let him, even though all she wanted to do was run away and cry into Rumpelstiltskin’s arms.

She expected him to scream threats once the glass settled, and she prepared for them with every haughty remark in her repertoire. Instead, he waved his gun to the almost undisturbed display.

“What is your favorite macaron flavor? Except strawberry—I think the strawberry has glass in it.”

Belle did not know how to answer that question, because she could not believe that she had heard it correctly.

“What?”

He shrugged, training the gun back on her as he reached for one of the paper bags on the counter. “Fine. I will choose.”

He started dropping macarons into the bag, moving along the rows of colorful cookies methodically. While he was distracted, Belle started inching away, but stopped at the sound of his gun cocking.

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?” she asked, and she wasn’t sure if she was talking about the dessert display that he was raiding, or the fact that she was sure he had just killed someone in the kitchen and was now trying to kidnap her.

“You’d rather I shoot you?” He stood up, bulging bag clutched in his hand, and advanced toward her. She held her ground, figuring if she escaped, he’d have one of his lackeys from the back shoot her anyway.

“Of course not. I just—why are you—oh!”

He pressed the bag into her hand and the gun into her shoulder. Before she could even try to break away, his free arm was locking hers behind her back.

“You are too nosy.”

He started to haul her to the door, keeping the barrel of his gun pressed to her bare arm. When he moved and it pinched the skin of her arm, she hissed, and he loosened his grip.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked again, trying to dig her heels in. Just a few minutes longer—maybe Rumpelstiltskin would be early.

“My name is Victor Zokas. My alias is Renard.” He yanked her out of the doorway, taking advantage of the fact that she stopped struggling because she was surprised. “I was kicked out of the KGB and caused trouble in several middle eastern countries. I kidnapped Elektra King for ransom. My men killed that man back there. And now you know too much, nosy woman, so you will have to come with me.”

He shoved her into the back of a black sports car, then slid in next to her, all the while managing not to remove the gun from her skin.

Belle, for her part, was not doing anything that Rumpelstiltskin would have been proud of. Instead, her mouth hung open, and she was trying to formulate an opinion on what had just happened. “What—I wouldn’t have known any of that if you hadn’t told me!”

He shut and locked the door, then gave an order to the driver in Russian before turning to her with Rumpelstiltskin’s smile.

With all the times she had been kidnapped, Belle could not find it in her to be too alarmed about the situation. All she could think about at the moment was the fact that the man seated next to her, who was reaching over to buckle her in, was going to be dead as soon as her lover found him.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Nice, France. Monday, March 3. 1012 hours._ **

Gold knew that something was wrong the second he and Bae walked up to the café. The air felt off, like it was intimidating the magic that he kept with him in his talisman, and he stopped outside the door.

“What’s wrong?” Bae asked, frowning.

“I don’t know.” His son may not have trusted him fully, but Gold hoped that he trusted his instincts, at least.

“Is it Belle?”

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to know the answer to that question, but he had the feeling that he already did know it. Without responding, he limped inside, his son trailing behind.

“Well, shit,” Bae said, and Gold could not have agreed with him more. The counter was destroyed, leaving shattered glass and buttercream in its wake, and Gold had to watch where he put his cane. There was no trace of blood, which was a good sign, but a quick sweep of the room had his eyes resting on the book he knew that Belle had brought with her, lying open on the table as though she had just set it down for a moment.

He tried to stay calm. She could be anywhere—the back, the bathroom, behind the café. For all he knew, she had just stepped out to call him, and he reached for his phone to check.

“Hey, Pop?”

Gold looked up at the far-off sound of Bae’s voice, not having realized that he’d walked off. “Yes?”

He was standing behind the counter, looking into the room that must have been the kitchen. It was hard to tell on his olive skin, but Gold thought he looked pale.

“What’s wrong?” He limped over, crushing glass beneath his Oxfords.

Bae pointed, and Gold followed the path his finger made until his eyes rested on two dead men. His head roared, and it was only when he felt Bae’s hand gripping his shoulder that he realized his mouth had roared as well. Something horrible had happened, and he couldn’t find Belle, and he was going to die here if all he found was her corpse.

It took a few seconds for him to realize that his son was calling his name, and when he finally turned to face him, Bae’s eyes widened.

“Look, she’s not here. If she were dead, her body would be here. She must have gone somewhere.”

“She would have called if she was in danger,” Gold hissed, stepping away from Bae to examine the room. “Unless she was restrained.”

“She’s fine,” Bae said, and Gold snarled at the ground. He wanted to crush something—glass, wood, bones—but there was nothing within range. Before he could move toward the already-smashed display case, strong arms had wrapped around him.

“Papa,” Baelfire said, and Gold felt himself deflating. He was so much smaller than his boy. “We’re going to find her.”

He was glad that his son was there to reassure him, but as he wilted into his embrace, he could feel his curse simmering beneath the surface. If anyone could find Belle, it was neither Baelfire nor Gold—it was the Dark One.

“Yes. We are.”

* * *

**_A Jaguar on La Provencal, France.  Monday, March 3. 1012 hours._ **

Belle was surprised that Victor Zokas thought the seatbelt was enough of a restraint. Not that Belle would have tried to escape a moving car—they still made her a little nervous, despite having lived in this world for over a year—but she wouldn’t have been surprised if a more technologically savvy woman had tried to. Then again, maybe he just thought the threat of the gun in his lap was enough.

The silence stretched so long, Belle started to fidget. She played with a ruffle on her blouse, ran her fingers along the seatbelt, tapped her toes against the floor, and twisted her ring around and around on her finger until a hand came down over hers to still it.

“Where are we going?” she blurted before she could stop herself.

Victor dragged her hand off her lap and onto the seat before releasing it. “Haven’t you learned not to be nosy yet?”

“I think I’m entitled to be nosy,” she said, folding her arms. She didn’t have it in her to be afraid of this ‘Renard’ now that they’d been sitting still. He had listed off a string of things that she didn’t understand—was the KGB an army? Who was Elektra King?—but she doubted that there was any way he was more dangerous than Regina or Rumpelstiltskin.

“Are you? And how do you figure that? I am the one with your life in my hands.” He waved his hand to the gun.

“There are more dangerous things than guns.”

“Like bombs, you mean?”

Belle scrunched her mouth, trying to put the word to an image. She knew what a bomb was in theory, but she didn’t know how dangerous it was. According to Henry, Independence Day was celebrated with airborne bombs, and as far as Belle knew, those were too high up to be a threat.

“I don’t know. Bombs explode, right?”

He furrowed his brow, giving the impression that his eyes were banked in a cave. “Yes, bombs—”

“And guns do too, right?”

His eyes narrowed further until they were almost hidden in the shadow of his forehead. “Yes.”

“So they can’t be much more dangerous, can they? And what kind of gun is that, anyway?” Before he could stop her, she plucked the black contraption out of his lap. Rumpelstiltskin would scold for years if he knew that she was being so blasé, but Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t there, and she had to hope that Victor shared more than just a face with her former employer.

“What are you doing?” He reached for the gun, but she held it out of his grasp, examining it.

Since she didn’t know if the safety was on—because she still wasn’t quite sure what a safety was—she kept her hands on parts with no buttons. This gun was different from Rumple’s pistol. The handle was closer to the middle, and it looked far too complex for Rumple’s “point and pull the trigger” instructions.

“What kind of gun is this? I’ve never seen one like it. The gun that shot me was much more straight-forward.”

 “You are going to kill all of us if you don’t put that down,” he said, holding his hands out for it.

She looked at him, the man who smashed a dessert display and walked her out of a café with this gun pressed to her shoulder. He could have ripped it from her hands and been done with it, and instead, he let her make the choice.

At least, he gave her the illusion of letting her make the choice. It was possible he would grab it soon.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to escape—or try to kill you.” She held the gun out to him and he snatched it out of her grasp.

“That would not matter. I am already dead.” Victor settled the gun in her lap, running his fingers along it like he was checking to make sure it was all there, and then lifted his gaze to her.

Belle met his gaze while her hands fell to her lap in a numb pile. Already dead? Did this man have magic? Or was he as much a victim of it as she and others had been? Did he have a heart? She cleared her throat, not wanting to let on that she might know something.

“What do you mean?”

His hand tightened on the gun while he watched her, and she cursed her expressive face. She tried to force a smile, but she was scared—really scared—for the first time all day, and the best she could manage was flattened lips.

“There is a bullet in my brain.” He pointed to his scar. “I will die soon.”

The relief she felt almost made her laugh, but she bit her lips together to keep it down. Then, what he said hit her, and she let out a sympathetic noise of horror.

“Oh, that’s terrible. And no one can get it out?”

He shook his head. “The doctor who saved my life could not remove it.”

Belle chewed her lip. She knew for a fact that Rumpelstiltskin would be able to remove it without problem, but she also knew that it was unwise to tell kidnapping rogues that she could end their pain, or that magic existed. Since she could say nothing to comfort him, she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. He made no indication that he felt it, or even that he knew she had moved.

“It’s a terrible thing to have your fate decided for you.”

He turned to look at her, but his gaze didn’t make it past her hand on his shoulder. Should she remove it? He was so focused on it that she wasn’t sure—if she removed it now, he might think she was rejecting him, and shoot her.

The silence stretched, so she turned to watching his face while he watched her hand. It was like he was pulling his expression together, piece by piece, letting the gears sit just right before anything moved, and she wondered if he was as touch-starved as Rumple had been before he’d met her. Though she didn’t love Victor as she loved Rumpelstiltskin, she vowed to remedy that. Maybe he wouldn’t kill people in the backs of shops if he knew that someone could care for him.

His expression when he turned to her made her want to hold him, and banish any capacity for him to make that face.

“I can’t feel anything.”

Then, she wanted to scold him—it was just like Rumple, claiming that he was a monster when she knew that he was capable of being so much more than a man.

“Everyone can feel something,” she said, squeezing his shoulder again. “Isn’t there something you like?”

“No, you misunderstand me, nosy woman.”

“Belle,” she said, slipping her hand off his shoulder and onto his forearm. “It’s Belle. Not ‘nosy woman.’”

“I do not care, girl.”

“I care.” She tried to look him in the eye, but he turned his head, so she looked as closely as she could. “Tell me what I’ve misunderstood.”

The look he gave her almost made her laugh—like a child who just wanted to play, but kept getting called in for chores. Perhaps he had not expected to kidnap a woman who had been kidnapped and locked away too much to care.

“I cannot feel. The bullet has taken away my senses.”

Belle looked at him, and then, together, they looked down at her hand resting on his arm. Her eyes were getting warm, and she flexed her fingers on his arm.

“Can you feel the pressure at all?”

He shook his head. Belle squeezed his arm out of habit, and then bit her lip. Was it insulting to touch him when he couldn’t feel it?

“What an awful burden,” she said.

The look he gave her at that made her think, for a second, that he might not mind it if she hugged him.

* * *

**_Monte Carlo_ ** **_, Monaco_ ** **_. Monday, March 3. 1045 hours._ **

He’d blindfolded her as soon as they’d crossed the border between France and Monaco, despite her assurances that she was not at all good at remembering directions without having a map, especially on the windy back roads of Europe. She’d tried to keep calm, reminding herself that being blindfolded in a car was much the same as being not-blindfolded in a car—she was still trapped, but there were exits, and Victor had pretty much promised not to shoot her while she couldn’t see, so that was at least a plus.

“You’re going to take this blindfold off, right?” she asked, doing the breathing exercises she’d learned from Dr. Hopper as discreetly as possible. “Once we’re safe?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

She pressed her lips together. Perhaps she needed to be more firm.

“Victor—”

“Victor?”

She could hear him shifting around to look at her, but his voice was not expressive, so that was her only indication of whatever mood he was in.

“Yes. That is your name, isn’t it?”

“People call me Renard.”

“You said that was your alias.” Maybe he’d meant nickname instead of alias? Russian seemed to be his first language, so it could have been a mistranslation on his part.

“Yes. It is the alias that people call me.”

She let out a huff of air. “Are you saying that you want me to call you ‘Renard,’ then, instead of your name?”

He was quiet for a few seconds, and he didn’t move, either, so she had no way to gauge what he was thinking.

“No. You can call me Victor.”

“Okay, well, Victor—you are going to take this blindfold off once we’re wherever we’re going.”

Belle was certain that he had the driver circling the block for at least ten minutes before they pulled to a stop. She had to lean on Victor and another man who smelled like vinegar in order to make it up the cobbled path in her heels while blindfolded, and then the doors were opened and she was hit with a blast of freezing air.

“Why is it so cold?” she asked, stumbling over the doorway.

“You will get used to it,” Victor said.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“You ask too many questions.”

“So I’ve been told. Will you take the blindfold off now? I’m not fond of the dark.”

There was some muffled conversation that she wished she could translate, and then Renard was untying her with almost-nimble fingers made clumsy by his inability to feel.  She shook her hair out, taking the time to look around while she finger-combed it. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but the entry hall of a mansion was not it. There were men in uniform wandering about, making it feel like a military-occupied house, but a house nonetheless—a house in which a family might live. Had they stolen it?

“I will take you to your room.” He offered his arm with a mocking smile, and Belle took it anyway, reminded of a time she raced after her captor only to be led to a dungeon.

Then, he led her to what amounted to a dungeon, and Belle put her foot down.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

She folded her arms and shook her head. “You can’t keep me there, I’ll wilt.”

“You’ll wilt?” He folded his arms as well, mimicking the way her hip jutted out.

“Yes, like a delicate little flower. Although, the amenities in your prison are nicer than others I’ve been in.” At least there were no stone walls, and it was open enough that she wouldn’t be claustrophobic. It was more like a closet than a cell, but it did have bars.

“What, are you a criminal?” He unlocked the door and swung it open, gesturing for her to get in. She didn’t move.

“No. Apparently, I’m very tempting to abduct. I will go in your cell on one condition.”

“You are in no position to bargain,” he said, but he had not reached for his gun yet, so she was inclined to disagree.

“You may not think so, but there will come a time when you will be glad that you have treated me fairly.”

Perhaps no one had ever stared him in the eye as long as Belle did, but when his nostrils flared a little, she knew she’d won.

“Fine. What is your condition?”

“I want to call my fiancé, and tell him that I’m not dead.”

“You are engaged?”

She raised her left hand, showing off the tricolored band with a diamond-blooming rose on top. Rumpelstiltskin had made it himself, somehow managing to sneak out to craft it for over a week without arousing her suspicion.

“Give me your ring as collateral, to ensure that you do not tell him anything.” He started to reach for her hand, but Belle’s reflexes were quick from having to get herself out of sticky situations, and her hands were clenched behind her back before he could move. She backed up against the bars, making sure there was steel pressing against her ring.

“No. I can’t. You’ll just have to stand next to me with a gun.”

“You would prefer that I almost shoot you.”

“Yes.” The ring—the one object she knew she wouldn’t lose on international travel—had become her own talisman. She didn’t have magic to lose, unlike Rumple. If she took it off, she’d lose herself.

“You are sentimental.” He started to reach for her again, and she pressed herself against the bars.

“No.” She shook her head—although it was true that she was. “You don’t understand. I can’t take the ring off. Please. Anything else. You can have my wallet.”

He took his gun out of the holster and cocked it toward her. “You can call as soon as someone brings the phone.”

“I would trust me, were I you,” she said, swallowing her fear of the gun. He seemed more rational than Regina—he wouldn’t shoot her unless she said something to Rumpelstiltskin that she shouldn’t.

“And why is that?”

“When my fiancé finds me—and he will—he won’t be pleased.”

“Your fiancé has no idea who he is dealing with.” He lowered the gun, but kept his finger on the trigger.

“Neither do you.”


End file.
